And a fun time was had by all . . .

We visited at Cousin Gary and Jo's on Wednesday. His sister Shirley and her daughter Vikki were visiting from Mississippi, so we had a little mini-family reunion! It was good to see them.

Thursday, we girlies all left in the late morning and went shopping. We went to craft stores and I got some more yarn. . . hmmmmm imagine that! We ate out at Cowboy Chicken which was good. At least what I got I really liked. I had been wanting to try this restaurant as they have one in Mission, Texas, that we had never tried.

Today Shirley and Vikki left to go back to Mississippi and Gary and Jo drove over to our camp and picked us up. We ran a couple errands and then ended up at a restaurant called Middendorf's in Akers, Louisiana. It is between Lake Maurepas and Lake Ponchartrain. It is famous for its "thin fried catfish." It was thin and it was very good. Another case of too much food. We got the "small" plates and once again brought half of it home to eat another day. But since we are embarking on traveling for a few days, it will give us "road food" as we like to call it. After our meal, we walked out to the deck and the pier that juts out into the water.

On our way back, we went through Ponchatoula which is known as the strawberry capital of the world. I don't think they are the only place that makes that claim, but they did have fresh strawberries for sale on every street corner. So we made the guys stop and we walked to one vender and bought a flat of the biggest berries I have every seen. Jo and I split them and I did get mine all cleaned tonight and we had some fruit for a snack. Yum yum.

We eventually ended up back in Amite where they were having the 2019 Oyster Festival. Jo was excited to go since they had never been and, of course, neither had we. So we walked around a bit. It wasn't very large, but there were some food venues. Jo wanted me to try to things, so I tried the shrimp and grits. The grits were actually pretty good, but I didn't care for how the shrimp was prepared. She said different people do them different ways and I might want to try them somewhere else. She also had me try charbroiled oysters. Oh my. . . now those I really liked. And Jo seemed to think those weren't the best she has had, but they were very good.

There were two music stages and there was a young man playing when we arrived. He actually was very good. A single guitar, but very talented and didn't seem to be very old. It was an enjoyable end to a wonderful day and we enjoyed spending it with Gary and Jo.

We returned to camp and said our goodbyes. It's been a fun few days, but we will return.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Love Louisiana!

We arrived in Louisiana after leaving the valley and spent our first night here in Breaux Bridge at Cajun Palms. This was actually our second time to visit this camp. It is a very nice camp and we enjoyed a seafood dinner at Crawfishtown, U.S.A. near our campground. I can't believe how much food they gave us. We should have gotten one meal and split it. We got the seafood platter and it came with a stuffed crab, a stuffed shrimp, oysters, a catfish filet, shrimp, french fries, coleslaw and hush puppies. We brought over half our meal home and then put them all in the freezer because we knew we wouldn't be eating any of it any time soon.

We left there on Wednesday morning and planned a relatively short day of driving to Amite, Louisiana. We wanted to visit cousin Gary and Jo and we normally stay in his yard, but they have had so much rain that Gary worries we may get our rig stuck in the yard and that would be no fun, so we stayed at a camp we have stayed at before when we visited them. It is 39 miles away and takes 55 minutes to travel, but it is a nice, clean camp and much larger lots and cheaper, albeit farther away, than the KOA over at Denham Springs. So we signed up for three nights.

We had the worst traffic we have every had coming out of Houston and across I-10 in Louisiana. There were times all the east-bound traffic stopped and there appeared to be no rhyme or reason why. No road construction, no wrecks, etc. There were even two times when road signs posted that the right lane was closing ahead, so we all dutifully got over into the left lane. The lane closure never materialized. Me thinks someone is playing head games with us! LOL When we got to Baton Rouge, the traffic stopped about five miles from the bridge. Then it was stop/go/creep all the way up to and over the bridge. I really didn't want to cross it. . . I don't like traffic stopped on bridges. I like it moving, but we stopped right at the apex. Fortunately it was a quick stop and then we proceeded on and made it over the bridge. Hope the traffic on eastbound tomorrow will be better. Should be since we have Houston, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans traffic out of the way. Another reason we decided to stay here is because we are about an hour east of Baton Rouge, so it will be a quicker and easier getaway.

Till next time. . .

Dale